"Vicki Grove was born on December 24, 1948 in Highland, Illinois. Her parents, James and Gretchen Baum, lived in a converted one-room schoolhouse surrounded by acres of corn, clover, and soybeans. Down the road lived her grandparents and greatgrandparents in century-old homes that gave Grove an appreciation of her family's history. When she was in junior high, her family moved away from the farm to Oklahoma, and she graduated from high school in Miami. She earned her B.A. (1972) and M.A.

(1973) degrees in English from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg.

Grove has been an English teacher, a grants researcher, a preschool owner, and an educational assistant at a church. Since 1983 she has devoted her time to writing, first fiction and nonfiction for national magazines and then novels for young adults.

In 1987 she won the Putnam Fiction Prize and a contract for Goodbye, My Wishing...